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Monday, September 7, 2009

peanut-ginger tvp stirfry

This past weekend the boy, his sister who is visiting from Hungary, and I went camping on FranklinIsland in the Georgian Bay area. It was absolutely beautiful; super sunny, sparkling water, tons tons tons of frogs. It was supposed to be a paddling trip, but I spent most of is lying in the sun, drinking cold tea (much better than algae-flavoured lake water), reading and eating. Oh my god, I ate so so much that I actually couldn't have paddled. We did go on a very nice little trek before the eating began; there was a beautiful little washed out beach, lots of beautiful lake and much general georgian bay gorgeousness.
For food, we had:

trail mix (naturally)

PC brand vegetarian chili (I was very perturbed and disappointed to realize that it had no vitamin C in it, despite being a tomato base and having veggies in it...maybe because of the cooking process? unfortunate as I was counting on it to ward off the scurvy)

Anyway, this trip reminded me of my love for TVP. TVP, or textured vegetable/soy protein, is defatted soy flour, a by-product of making soybean oil. It's super cheap, filling, delicious, high in protein and low in fat and carbs. It has a great texture and soaks up flavour from what it's cooked with, making it an adaptable ingredient for a wide range of dishes; I've had it in everything from tacos and chili, to pasta sauce and king's cafe's kung pao soy chicken.

How to cook TVP
put dry TVP in a bowl, cover with boiling water
cover and let sit 10-15 min

TVP is pretty much tasteless on its own; adding flavouring is a must. Luckily TVP is pretty much a sponge and as such is super easy to marinade. If you're adding to a chili or soup, add the dry TVP directly to the dish, so that it'll absorb the flavour of the dish while reconstituting. If you're adding the TVP to a stirfry, and have rehydrated it in boiling water, then I find it's best if you squeeze out the water from the reconstituted TVP and then cover them in the marinade.

no! no gluten! unlike seitan...seitan is the pure wheat gluten one (which always makes me sad, because it's also the ingredient of choice for most mock "meats"); TVP is the one made entirely from soy - when they make soy oil, the stuff they separate from it becomes TVP. So it's super super super high in protein!